


a fistful of flowers

by broadway_hufflepuff



Series: friends & flowers [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Billy Hargrove's Funeral, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler Friendship, Mike Wheeler is Bad at Feelings, Mike Wheeler is a good friend, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Poetry, Post-Stranger Things 3, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadway_hufflepuff/pseuds/broadway_hufflepuff
Summary: Max breaks down at Billy's funeral; Mike comforts her.Or, the poem where Mike finally gets over himself and learns to care about Max.





	a fistful of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!  
As you can probably tell, I strongly believe Mike and Max could have such an amazing friendship, and the lack of fanfics about them infuriates me!  
As usual, please don't repost.  
All characters are not mine, they belong to Netflix.  
Thank you!

_he cares less about max than he does about any of them_

_yet here she is, standing alone in the rain, crying, _screaming,

_at her own brother's funeral,_

_and something inside of mike, it just-_

_breaks. because if that had been eleven-_

_max would have been kneeling next to him, talking him through this:_

_he could see it: a fistful of roses clutched in his hand, where eleven's palm used to slip into,_

_perfectly, like a puzzle. like a glove._

_after a while, his eyes start to water-_

_the true meaning of how he'd treated max finally hitting him-_

_the true horrid ash of his words, how she sobbed-_

_the image of billy's bloodied face after he'd saved eleven._

_mike kneels down, rescuing the crumpled violets from max's clenched hands-_

_"i'm sorry," he says._

_he wants to clean up all of max's broken pieces._

_he wants to remember how she helps them, how she makes lucas happy, how dustin seems to enjoy her company-_

_how billy had died for el._

_his heart aches, a stinging, twisting pain-_

_max, in her own tornado._

_in her own steamrolled garden of dead daisies._

_"it's going to be okay," mike says, _ _"i'm sorry. for everything."_

_max nods. _

_takes back the violets. _

_mike thought he cared less about max than he did about any of them_

_yet there she was, standing alone in the rain, crying, _screaming,

_at her own brother's funeral,_

_and mike just_

_holds her._

_because being a friend,_

_means growing back the flowers_

_that withered in the winter._

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos!


End file.
